1. Quick ‘Bite-Size’ Content Will Convert the Best

But I wanted to emphasise a point. How many of you clicked to read this article because you thought it was going to be short and easy to digest?

​Many of you, I'm sure.

​It’s a well known fact that our attention spans are shortening every year.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the average attention span shortened from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8.25 seconds in 2015.

​It's scary to think what our attention span will reduce to in 15 more years!

You have to keep this fact in mind when creating marketing content.

You need to make sure it’s designed for mobile and can be consumed quickly.

It’s rare that the majority of your readers will read every word. They will generally scan your article, read the headlines, and then, if you intrigue them enough, they will read your explanatory paragraphs.

TIPS:

1. Aim for 500-1,000 words per article. People don't have the time (or patience) to read a 3,000 word essay any more.

2. Use one to two sentences per paragraph. Forget what you were taught in English lessons, new rules apply now for online content.

3. Use bullet points and sub-headings to break up the article. Write for scanners, not readers.

4. End with a 'Call to Action'. Point your readers to what you want them to do next, for example - subscribing to your email list, purchasing a product, or signing up to a free trial.

2. Email Marketing Will Continue to Dominate

Email marketing is not going away.

​Even though we're using a wide variety of social media platforms on a regular basis, nearly everyone has an email address, and most will still check their inbox every morning.

If you rely too heavily on one social media platform to acquire new customers, overnight, you run the risk that everything could change.

For example, a couple of years ago, you could reach all of your Facebook followers for free with a single post.

But now, you can only reach 3-5% of your followers organically.

So the bottom line is don’t stop collecting email addresses. You’ll still get the highest ROI and conversion rates by sending emails to your prospects and customers.

One of the other advantages is that people rarely change their email address. When was the last time you changed yours?

Email doesn’t have to be static and boring any more.

By just adding a few lines of code, you can now search for a product, add it to your shopping cart, and pay for it, all without leaving your email!.

Check out this example below.

Source: www.webdesignerdepot.com

TIPS:​1. Avoid exclamation marks and the overuse of capitalizion. Or you could end up going to your prospect’s spam folder.

2. Segment your email list based on the user’s actions - Have they already bought from you? Did they opt-in to your lead magnet? Did they sign-up to your newsletter? Depending on their actions, you need to tailor your emails to them.

3. Live Video Will Explode

2016 was the year when live videos came into the mainstream. At the start of the year, apps like Periscope & Meerkat started off the trend.

But then, Facebook came along and introduced their ‘Facebook Live’ feature.

As Facebook already have all of the users, it’s likely that they will dominate the live video streaming industry in 2017.

With users having better internet connections and more mobile data available, the use of live video streaming will only continue to increase further.

Even the U.S. presidential debate was streamed live!

Source: finance.yahoo.com

Also, as this is one of Facebook’s new features, they will promote live videos more frequently to their users than other types of posts.

TIPS:

1. If you’re holding an event, try live streaming part of it on Facebook. People might not be able to attend your event in person, but nearly all your prospects will be able to live stream it or watch it later.

2. Learn from others. Watch people who are doing it effectively and note down what you liked / didn't like. Take notes. Prepare your video in advance.

3. Practice makes perfect - Keep practicing it until you get it right. Try just streaming to friends or colleagues before you go live to your entire audience.

And as I mentioned earlier, you should always end your article with a 'Call to Action'. So here's mine...

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About the Author

Sam Ameen is the Head of Digital Marketing at IC Studio, one of the founding partners of Betatron. He's passionate about helping companies acquire new customers using unique growth hacking and customer acquisition strategies.